LaxLu Challenge Week 2015, Day 1: Trouble. She was on a mission to make a rogue Celestial Spirit stop causing trouble for innocent civilians...and as it turned out, only she could glass-half-full the day a guildmate of hers had caused the most trouble for Fairy Tail.

Disclaimer: Apart from my OC Celestial Spirit, Aquila the Eagle, I do not own Fairy Tail or any characters or locations within.

The Eagle in the Oak Tree

It was a simple enough request, perfect as a solo mission for a once-again-in-danger-of-failing-to-make-her-rent Lucy. According to the job-request flyer, a rogue Celestial Spirit had taken up residence in the towering oak tree amid the Freesia Town park and was now terrorizing park-goers by throwing dangerous blasts of lightning at any person daring to go near the tree.

Only one Spirit matched the mayor's description in the request, Lucy knew, and that was Aquila the Eagle. Given the common association with lightning of both eagles and oak trees, it made sense that a lightning-using eagle spirit would roost in a towering oak. Why, however, was Aquila so determined to frighten people away from the park? Was it because he had been contracted to abusive masters in the past, and was therefore, while now uncontracted, bent on avoiding making a contract with any would-be master? Lucy had no idea of Aquila's motives in that regard, but she would talk to him about it, and if she could not persuade him to make a contract with her, she would at least stop him from making trouble for the innocent Freesia park-goers. Steeling her resolve, she strode determinedly toward the great oak tree and extended her whip toward a branch a few feet up from the lowest ones, in order to use the whip as a climbing rope.

Barely had the Celestial mage set foot on a sturdy lower branch and retracted her whip when a blast of lightning missed her by less than two feet, striking the ground below. Flinching, but forcing herself to sheathe her fear, Lucy continued climbing, even as the near-misses of the lightning, originating from a place high in the canopy of leaves, became narrower still with every foot she climbed.

As the shining silver key came into view, however, Lucy realized that while Aquila's lightning kept coming dangerously close, the Spirit seemed not to have any intention of actually shocking her with it. You're testing the bravery of your would-be summoner, aren't you, Aquila? Lucy thought, relaxing visibly amid her climb. You won't serve a Celestial mage who's afraid of thunder and lightning, so you're throwing lightning around to scare off all but the most daring. Fortunately, Lucy had faced a trial by lightning before, at a time when she hadn't been nearly as strong as she was now. Compared to the amount of lightning being thrown around then, Aquila's light show was unremarkable.

The key was just a yard above her now, which was a relief given the much narrower near-miss from Aquila that the Celestial mage's complacent body language had incited. At last Lucy's pink-Fairy-Tail-marked right hand shot up and snatched the key from the branch on which it hung—and with a blinding flash, high voltage speared through her body, shocking her into losing her footing on her current standing-branch and falling. The jolt was gone as quickly as it had come, however, and Lucy, narrowly avoiding a hard head-strike, managed a haphazard grip with her left arm and leg on what had been her standing-branch. Miraculously she had kept her grip on Aquila's key even through the painful jolt, and now she tucked the key into her shorts pocket so that she could climb down the oak tree safely.

Three blocks away, Laxus and the Raijinshuu had finished their mission an hour outside of Freesia Town and now made their way down the main road, ultimately bound for Oshibana Town and the train that would bring them home to Magnolia. The lightning dragon slayer, however, paused unexpectedly at the sight of odd magic flashes that were both unnatural and surprisingly close and the ozone-like scent of lightning, combined with a familiar scent of strawberries, vanilla, and Celestial magic. Lucy? The name of the beautiful and kind-hearted summoner echoed in his mind. What was she doing here? Was she fighting something?

"Laxus-sama?" came Freed's puzzled voice a moment later. "What's going on?"

"Wait here," the dragon slayer ordered. Once he had assurance that the Raijinshuu would obey, Laxus turned and made his way toward the park at a fast walk, balancing the need for speed with the need not to attract attention. Lucy may or may not need help, he reasoned, but if she did, it might not be wise of him to draw the attention of whatever (or whomever) she was fighting too soon. He spotted the origin of the lightning flashes quickly enough: the blonde Celestial mage was climbing up a towering oak tree toward something in the uppermost branches. All the while, however, a source, which Laxus couldn't quite identify, was throwing lightning in her general direction, narrowly missing her several times. What the hell is she after, and why hasn't all that lightning scared her off?

Then it happened almost too fast even for Laxus to follow. The moment Lucy lashed up with her hand and grabbed whatever-it-was she was after, she was hit with a jolt powerful enough to make her slip from her standing-branch with a sharp cry of shock. Against all odds, however, the girl managed to catch herself on the branch with an arm and leg—and not only that, but she had even kept her grip on the object that had zapped her when she seized hold of it. The dragon slayer kept a wary eye and ear on the Celestial mage as she recovered, tucking the thing she'd grabbed into a pocket and regaining her footing among the tree branches, and soon, once Lucy had regained her breath, she uttered a sentence the slayer had never expected to hear from any of his guildmates.

"Thank you very much, Laxus, for making me face my fear awhile back."

To say that he'd been stunned was an understatement. Somehow this girl—whom he'd once disparaged as the weakest of weaklings—had managed to find something good in the day he'd been at his absolute worst, the day he had caused the most trouble for Fairy Tail as a guild.

The thing that Lucy had climbed up the oak tree to retrieve was a Celestial Spirit gate key, obviously belonging to a Spirit that used lightning-based magic. Laxus did not know much about Celestial Spirit magic, but if his Spirit-summoning guildmate had needed to face a trial by lightning before she could be allowed to hold this key, it stood to reason that the Spirit in question had no intention of serving a master who feared his (or her, as the case may be) element. Hence the Spirit had made a roost in the great oak tree and threatened all who came near with bolts of lightning, until a Celestial mage came along who was brave enough to climb up and grab the key in spite of the terribly strong threat of being electrocuted.

Only she could glass-half-full the one day in both of our lives that I'm most ashamed of, Laxus thought, thoroughly in awe of what an amazing heart Lucy possessed. It was one thing to forgive; it had been one thing for her to defend his honor against a heckler who had brought up the issue of the Fantasia incident just to give Fairy Tail grief. But for this Celestial mage to pull herself through a test of bravery, and then to thank a former assailant for having inured her by means of a previous trial...such a thing took an immense amount of...well, Laxus wasn't certain what kind of virtue it took, but he was certain that few people had it in anywhere near Lucy's measure.

Beaming with pride at having made it through Aquila's trial and anticipation at the prospect of forming a contract with a new Spirit, the blonde Celestial mage finished climbing down the oak tree and found a bench to rest upon for several minutes before she summoned the eagle-spirit. A familiar baritone, however, cut into her musing. "Well, don't you look like the cat that ate the canary?" the voice asked in lieu of greeting, and Lucy looked up to see the tall and muscular, blond and lightning-scarred Laxus approaching her, wearing a pleased expression almost identical to hers—as if he knew she now had the key to summon a spirit that used the same element as himself. "You've got a new key. Which one is it?"

"Hello, Laxus, fancy meeting you here," Lucy replied, slightly breathless from her climb but pleased to see one of her guildmates nonetheless. "Yes, I do have a new key. You're going to love this one—it's Aquila the Eagle, and he uses lightning magic."

Laxus' grin widened further as he sat down on the bench next to Lucy. "Sounds wonderful. Have you already formed your contract with the new Spirit, or were you waiting to catch your breath first? It did look kinda like he was putting you to some test before he'd let you have his key..."

"Not contracted yet," Lucy answered, "but yeah, he did make me climb up that big oak tree to get the key." She indicated the towering oak several yards from the bench with a wave of her hand. "Makes sense; eagles and oak are both sacred to a thunderbolt-wielding king of the gods." Finally the Celestial mage felt recovered enough to summon Aquila in order to make their contract, and stood up with the key in her hand. "I am connected to the path of the World of the Celestial Spirits! Now, O Spirit, hear my call and pass through the gate! Open, Gate of the Eagle! Aquila!"

A flash of brilliant white light erupted from the key, and when Lucy stuck her left arm out with her hand closed into a fist, the light dissipated to reveal a golden eagle that had perched on her wrist, its talons digging into the material of her hoodie-sleeve but strangely not hurting her. "So you're the Celestial mage who passed my test of bravery," the eagle-spirit summed up, eyeing his summoner with an apprasing look. "I should've known better than to expect less from the renowned Lucy Heartfilia, owner of ten out of twelve Ecliptic Zodiac keys and sweetheart of the entire Celestial Spirit World."

Lucy gave an abashed smile. "Yes, I'm Lucy, and the big guy beside me," she indicated Laxus, who had risen from his seat, with a tilt of her head, "is the one who made me face my fear of thunder awhile back, which is why your light show barely scared me. His name is Laxus Dreyar, and he's a Lightning Dragon Slayer."

"I was at my absolute worst that day, and she makes it sound like no big deal," said Laxus, not quite able to hide the guilt he still felt.

"Well, since Princess Lucy was able to find something good in whatever it was that you did, perhaps it's well and truly not an issue," Aquila sagely told Laxus before directing his attention back to Lucy. "Now back to the matter of our contract. You know that I use lightning magic, and you've probably gathered that I can act as a short-distance transport Spirit. I am available whenever you need me, with the sole exception of the thirty-first day of any month with as many days, or the twenty-ninth day of February in any leap year. On those days, I would ask not that you refrain entirely, but only that you restrict your summoning to emergency situations."

Lucy nodded with a pleased smile. "Sounds perfectly reasonable. There's one test I need to conduct, though—Laxus, I need you to go over to that end of the park..."—she indicated by pointing at a street lamp—"and then Aquila, I need you to pick Laxus up and carry him around the perimeter of the park one or two times. I need to know if Celestial Spirits can carry dragon slayers without making them suffer motion sickness," she explained. Once the eagle-spirit and the dragon slayer had done as she instructed, Lucy directed her next query at Laxus: "How are you feeling?"

"Not queasy in the least," he answered, smirking. "I still prefer turning into lightning and teleporting, but it's good to know there's an alternative in case I need one."

"I think I know what your final request will be, Princess, before you dismiss me," Aquila remarked at last before taking to the air once more. The eagle sparked all over with white lightning for a moment before letting out a screeching blast of lightning breath, directing it at Laxus, who promptly drank it in the way Natsu ate flames.

Once he'd swallowed Aquila's lightning, Laxus licked his lips in satisfaction. "That was delicious," he praised.

Lucy blushed and smiled. "Thank you very much, Aquila, you may return to the Spirit World." When the eagle-spirit disappeared in a lightning-flash, the Celestial mage turned to her dragon slayer guildmate with wry amusement. "The rest of the dragon slayers will be all kinds of jealous, won't they, when they find out about Aquila?"

Her smile faltered, however, when she saw the expression that had settled onto Laxus' lightning-scarred face once Aquila was gone. It was one of some reverence, but a lot of guilt and inability to accept something he had believed too good to be true. "How do you do it, Lucy?" he asked, stepping close and gently tilting the Celestial mage's face up toward his with one large warm hand. "How is it that you not only forgive the people who do wrong, but you manage to find something good in the trouble they've made?"

"You know what they say about things that don't kill us making us stronger," Lucy commented, leaning into the dragon slayer's touch, serenity and optimism in her warm brown eyes with a hint of flirting spirit. "I'm a lot stronger now than I was back then, not just in being much less afraid of lightning than before."

The spark in the Celestial mage's eyes was by no means lost on the lightning man, and he found himself returning her smile. "No, you've already shown me you're not afraid of lightning," he replied, the guilt giving way to amusement that danced in his stormy blue-grey eyes before they darkened with a heat that sent a thrill through Lucy. "In fact, I think you truly revel in it." As if to prove this statement true, Lucy's eyes slid shut and she shivered in anticipation as Laxus drew her in toward him with his other arm, a moment before he lowered his head just enough to seal his lips to hers.

The kiss was, for lack of a better word, electric. Tiny jolts of pleasure sparked everywhere they touched, from his lips upon hers and the hand that caressed her cheek to where his other arm wrapped around her and pressed their bodies together, even through the layers of clothes between them. When she slid a hand up to thread her fingers in his spiky blond hair, she giggled at the static-like sensation on her fingertips, giving him the opportunity to deepen the kiss. Her giddiness turned into a pleasured moan as he began to explore her mouth with his tongue, the allspice flavor of the kiss enhancing his stormy and slightly woody scent.

"Holy shit!" a shocked masculine voice exclaimed, and Lucy and Laxus broke off their kiss, looking toward where the voice had come from to see that Freed, Evergreen, and Bickslow had all come into view, the last one having made the interrupting utterance. "Who woulda thought we'd meet Cosplay Queen all the way out here?"

"Cosplay Queen! Cosplay Queen!" the totems that Bickslow called his "babies" cheerfully repeated.

"So this disturbance that you sensed was related to what Miss Lucy was here to do," Freed summed up, ignoring the fact that the Raijinshuu had caught their leader and the Celestial mage kissing each other.

Lucy chuckled. "Yes, that was my latest new Spirit, Aquila the Eagle, throwing lightning at me as a way of testing my bravery before he would make a contract—he didn't want to be contracted to a Celestial mage who's afraid of thunder and lightning, you see," she explained. "Which reminds me, I've got to show the mayor I've dealt with the troublemaker and collect my reward. Guess I'll be seeing you four at the guild." Lucy smiled at Laxus one last time, a promising twinkle in her eyes, before she reluctantly pulled out of his embrace and started making her way up the street from the park to the Freesia Town Hall.

Once the Celestial mage was safely out of earshot, Laxus cast an annoyed glare at all three of his teammates, but especially at Bickslow. "You three have some of the worst possible timing sometimes," he grumbled.

"Oh, I don't know about that," Evergreen good-naturedly contradicted. "You've been interested in her for a long time, and now we can see she's got feelings for you too. First she tells a fair-weather-fairy heckler to bug off on your behalf, and now her showing courage in the face of a trial by lightning leads to, well, what we just saw."

"She's clearly warmed up to you, so I say go for it, man," Bickslow encouraged, his babies echoing the words, "Go for it! Go for it!"

As the four resumed their trek toward Oshibana Town and the train that would take them home, Laxus gave some thought to what had happened with Lucy and eventually decided that yes, he would take his friends' advice to heart and test the relationship skies with the Celestial mage. He would be a fool, he reasoned, not to draw closer to the one girl in all the world who could glass-half-full just about any bit of trouble thrown her way.